My wife worked her ass off (yes, my pregnant wife works harder than me – pretty much across the board) while I napped and ripped a bunch of Nice Guy Tony’s CDs to my ever-expanding .mp3 collection.
Thanks to Rob, I also had plenty of reading material to tide me over this holiday weekend:

I finished Voice of the Fire, Alan Moore’s debut novel. I could recommend it to the right person. Thematically, the novel deals with many of the same subjects as Moore’s comic work: history, the occult, the act of creating art and how each of us weaves our reality from whatever loose threads existence presents to us. There’s also a fair amount of narrative experimentation, which one would expect from Moore. The first chapter alone is probably enough to frighten off the undisciplined reader – its written in the voice of a neolithic half-wit who has trouble separating dreams from reality. Another chapter’s narrator is a severed head with a lump of coal in one eye…good stuff! What surprised me about the novel is how tight Moore keeps his prose. Given his tendency toward over-description in his comic scripts, this is a unexpected and welcome feature. I think I’ll pick up my own copy of this novel so that I can read some of these stories to my son whilst we sit around a campfire late at night.

I also looked through Batman: Year 100, Paul Pope’s Batman books. The art: awesome. Drawn by Pope and colored by Jose Villarrubia (who also did digital photos for Moore’s novel above), Batman: Year 100 is a visual treat. I didn’t much care for the story – Batman in a dystopian, police-state Gotham City attempting to thwart a bio-terrorist attack. The media of the future paints Batman as a terrorist…yadda yadda yadda…but the real terrorists are________. The plot was blah and not very interesting and Pope (who scripted as well) had many subversive angles to work in this story but chose to go with the most obvious instead.

Finally, I looked through Put the Book Back on the Shelf, a collection of comics inspired by Belle & Sebastian songs. This book worked for me from start to finish because:
1) I like Belle & Sebastian
2) I like comics.
3) I really, really like comics that interpret songs or poetry. I’ve written a few myself (one for Peter Murphy’s ‘Cut You Up’ that I’m particularly proud of).
So, pick up this book if you like B&S or if you’re just a fan of fine comics.

Last, but not least, this just came to me from my beautiful wife:
“Afentra just mentioned that the Emasculators is going to be a comic book but they need artists.”
E-mail Afentra: afentra(at)965thbuzz.com for details.
(Rob, if you’re reading, would you cross-post this?)

We decided to catch a film last night and use those free movie passes my boss gave me Friday. Vanity Fair struck our fancy. Good film. Beeeeeeyooteefull costumes and sets â€“ a helluva period piece. Iâ€™m not too familiar with Thackerayâ€™s novel but I enjoyed the thematic juxtaposing of issues of class and war. One thing I couldnâ€™t help notice was the similarity between Vanity Fair and Gone With the Wind â€“ both set against a wartime backdrop, both feature heroines willing to do what they feel necessary to be successful. Thereâ€™s even a similar line spoken by both Rhett Butler and Rawdon Crawley â€“ both men say something along the lines of, â€œThatâ€™s your misfortune,â€ when each wife tells her husband that she loves him. Granted, Scarlett was a born aristocrat and Becky is struggling to be a society-type, but the similarities between the two characters and their stories still struck me. At any rate, if you like period pieces and witty social commentary check it out.

i was more struck by the fetishizing of the exotic other. that subversion of the occidental (aesthics or class systems) is romanticized by colonial powers but in practice, or in proximity, that other is very threatening and the ruling power loses some of the legitimacy to its claim to be more ‘civilized’ or culturally evolved. the colonizing power becomes just as savage in defending its social constuctions against outside influence.

thanks, catalyst, for the link. i don’t think you should fear for my soul so much as you should fear for people trying to navigate your URL. 🙂 that’s a busy site!
after going over your URL, i don’t think there’s much there that will be of interest to me.
further, it seems that what you mean by getting “the most outta” my “Finite Existence” is that the focus of my finite existence should be on some proposed infinite existence and i wholly disagree. i appreciate that you’re willing to gamble your limited earthly time in the hope of being rewarded with eternal life but please appreciate that i’m not a gambling man.
if your god is as perfect and loving as you say, it clearly will understand my position. so, again, please there’s no need to fear for my soul (or any others’ really. god can take care of the logistics. worry about yourself).
thanks for visiting BB!

Here’s the deal, party people. Scott McCloud invented this thing called a 24 Hour Comic, where you get basically an entire day to create a 24-page comic book from start to finish. Yeah, from idea inception to a 24-page illustrated tale…in a day.

Now I’ve never done one, and probably never will because it would take me more than 24 hours to learn to draw, but there are people in your city (provided you’re reading this while somewhere in the KC metro) who do like to try this experiment. Better than that, these people would like YOU to come try it with them. Better still, these people would like you to come try it with them FOR CHARITY!

New poem up in the “Poetry” part of the “Writing” section. Roll over the star to your left to get there.

Today BB! and the KC Roller Warriors will be at Greaserama. I’ll be at the CCN’s writers’ group from 3-5 but you should come down to El Torreon and buy some cupcakes to support the girls. You should come out and listen to The Deadenders rock out around 1PM. You should come out to see some bitchin’ hot rods.